I spent the weekend expanding my breadth of knowledge in commercial real estate. This is the next major strategy I am adding to our personal retirement portfolio so getting into the right networks and finding experienced investors that I can Joint Venture with is key to our success.
I realize that I am highly skilled at certain aspects of investing – acquisitions, asset management, disposition, and even property management – but there are some things I have to push myself to get motivated to do.
For instance, I love networking with ambitious, driven people and find it easy to make initial contacts. I have to push myself to maintain those relationships and even enrich or deepen them if we don’t have a project in common at the time. I keep good notes of who I have met and who may be a good connection for future projects, but I struggle to force myself to reach out and reconnect regularly.
I suffer from being so driven to achieve my own goals that I sometimes forget I can be a resource to others just as I may need them to be for me. Without deeper connections, we tend to drift from people that we should be pulling closer to.
This is my stretch this year – to deepen and further explore at least 1 relationship per month to more than a superficial level. I will be “interviewing” for my Dirty Dozen – the top 12 people in my network that I consider my Board of Advisors. My hope is that this team of amazing humans will become my sounding board, my reality check, and my emotional support team all in one.
I look forward to meeting, connecting, and deepening my connections this year!